The project would have shut the Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery stations for the entire holiday weekend, requiring scores of buses to bridge the gaps created in the rail services. Scheduling a track work project of this magnitude requires more than six months of planning and is costly to set up, so postponement is not an easy call.

"Priority number one this week is to dig out from this record snowfall and resume operations on Metrobus, Metrorail and MetroAccess," Dave Kubicek, Metro's acting deputy general manager, said in a statement. "With additional snow in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, we must focus all of our efforts on safe operations and continuing to help get people where they need to go."

Metro has not announced service plans for Tuesday. On Monday, trains continued to operate underground only. And Metrobuses were limited to a few lines following emergency snow routes.